captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> what do you think about, in the midst of a crisis, shooting the price up like that? >> if you're out there trying to get as far and wide coverage for people, and you watch the price escalate, it feels really predatory. >> to inject, place black end against outer thigh. >> we wanted to know how prices for life-saving drugs get raised up to scandalous levels in the middle of the opioid crisis. you jack the price from the $575-- >> lesley, i-- >> --to $4,000! $4,000! >> lesley, lesley? >> what? >> tim green was a fearsome defender in the n.f.l., and a best-selling author.

but he's on "60 minutes" tonight to reveal a secret he can no longer hide. he has a.l.s., or lou gehrig's disease. we first interviewed green in 1996, and he seemed to believe this day might come. you said, "i think guys would be willing to take ten, 20 years off the end of their lives, in order to get out there on a sunday and play. i don't think that the consideration of your physical wellbeing in the future is in the forefront of any n.f.l. player's mind. >> right. i stand by that. >> you don't have any regrets? >> no, no. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm scott pelley. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm bill whitaker. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes." ♪

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called naloxone. it's generic today, and industry insiders told us it can cost as little as a nickel a dose to produce. in april, in response to the national opioid crisis, the u.s. surgeon general came out with an advisory calling on more americans to carry naloxone: elderly patients on painkillers; bartenders and librarians; mothers with addicted children, and children with addicted mothers. but making naloxone accessible-- getting it to those who need it-- is complicated. jennifer plumb, an emergency room pediatrician in salt lake city, says naloxone is a miracle drug. >> dr. jennifer plumb: understand, this stuff is really good at what it does. it has one job. can't get high on it. can't overdose on it. can't relieve pain with it. you can just save a life with it. i mean, how amazing is that? >> stahl: does it really bring people back from death? >> dr. jennifer plumb: it really does.

and it is black and white. it is someone: "hey, hey, hey, hey, talk to me, talk to me," no response-- to, up and alert and talking to you. >> stahl: come on. >> dr. jennifer plumb: no, i'm serious. it is legitimately the most, almost surreal thing. because not much in medicine, not much in life does that. >> stahl: you can see it through police bodycams. this woman in the back of a salt lake city p.d. squad car isn't breathing. the officer sprays naloxone up her nose with a device called narcan, provided to first responders at nearly half price. watch it take effect. >> there you go! there you go! >> stahl: another case: a young man found on a sidewalk, completely unresponsive. officers administer naloxone. they only need to wait a few seconds. >> you're okay, you're okay! ( sirens ) >> stahl: out with firefighters in salt lake city one cold

night, we learned that most of the department's emergency calls are not fire-related, but medical. utah-- conservative utah-- is among the top ten states in the country for opioid overdose deaths, averaging a funeral a day. >> firefighter: we're going to give a little naloxone, to see if it has any effect. >> stahl: they're trying to save a man found lifeless in a park. cause, unknown. >> firefighter: so, it very well could have been an overdose. but nobody saw him do it. >> stahl: so, how much time do you have? >> mike fox: well, about six minutes. >> stahl: how can you get to someone across town in six minutes? >> fox: it's hard. >> stahl: mike fox is the fire department's medical chief. >> fox: we, on average, give naloxone about two times a day, on calls. >> stahl: a day? >> fox: a day, in salt lake city proper. it's one of our largest expenditures every year. >> stahl: would you say it's a strain on your budget? >> fox: as we see more and more overdoses, it does affect our budgets. >> stahl: did you have to persuade any of the other firefighters that this wasn't,

in a way, encouraging more addictions? >> stahl: and we also hear that you save someone's life, and the next day, they're right back at it. >> fox: they are. this is a disease, and it's a difficult disease to kick. so, if we have to save someone's life three or four times, five times, it doesn't matter to me. >> stahl: so people are overdosing repeatedly. >> fox: nobody wants to overdose. it's not our job to judge. it's our job to save lives, and the medication will save lives. it's not a fix, right? it doesn't fix the opioid epidemic. it doesn't fix the addiction, right? this is merely giving someone a chance. >> stahl: in this case, they got to the man too late... >> firefighter: okay, let's terminate our resuscitation efforts at this time. >> stahl: since speed is essential, nearly all states have now made it legal for anyone to carry and administer naloxone, like these two good samaritans injecting a stranger.

by the time emergency responders show up, the woman has already come to. dr. plumb runs a program called "utah naloxone," to hand out these emergency kits to anyone, with two vials of naloxone and two syringes. you go into the worst parts of town? >> dr. jennifer plumb: sure, sometimes. >> stahl: into sex houses? >> dr. jennifer plumb: sure. >> stahl: you go into homeless shelters. >> dr. jennifer plumb: yeah, absolutely. >> patrick rezac: hey, excuse me, do you want naloxone? >> stahl: patrick rezac, a former drug addict, is part of a network that has helped dr. plumb hand out more than 36,000 kits for free, some on the roughest streets of salt lake city, in an area called rio grande. >> you got money? >> mccall: we have naloxone! >> rezac: you guys need naloxone? our goal would be to have everybody have one of these. and so, we just ask people if they have heard of naloxone, if they need naloxone. you take the top off, okay, and then you put the needle in

the liquid and you pull it back, all right? and put it straight in the thigh. boom! >> right there. >> rezac: yup, right there, right in the shoulder. right through the clothes. doesn't matter. >> stahl: dr. plumb's brother, sam, co-founded "utah naloxone." >> sam plumb: you've got two doses, and you got two syringes. just put them right in a big muscle. no "pulp fiction," not in the heart. >> stahl: what if you come upon someone and they're on the ground... >> sam plumb: yeah? >> stahl: ...and you think it's an overdose, but it's really a heart attack? and you give them this? >> sam plumb: you won't help them, but you won't hurt them. same thing for diabetes, same thing for head injuries. same thing for strokes. >> stahl: how did you get interested in this? you're a pediatric doctor. you work in the e.r. >> dr. jennifer plumb: yeah, you know, unfortunately, my family went through dealing with addiction in our family. 1996, we lost my brother andy to a heroin overdose. >> stahl: in his situation, if naloxone had been there, would he have been saved? >> dr. jennifer plumb: i do think at least in that one night when we lost him, if naloxone would have been there, i do

think he would have had another chance that night. and that was a big motivator. >> stahl: and you give it out free? >> dr. jennifer plumb: absolutely free, absolutely free, always will be. >> stahl: so how do you get it? >> dr. jennifer plumb: we purchase it. we-- we get grant money and we have-- >> stahl: grant money? >> dr. jennifer plumb: yeah, we get grant funds. >> stahl: people on the street, and i'm including law enforcement, think, "why do we have to expend money and extra energy when you're just doing it to yourself?" >> dr. jennifer plumb: right. you know, i have had the unfortunate experience of losing my dad to cancer and my brother to addiction. and i will tell you, these are both chronic and relapsing conditions, right? if your cancer relapses, you get everything. you get support from your community. you have teams of physicians that sit down and say, "all right, we're going to find the next step for you." but you look at my brother's addiction, a chronic relapsing condition, and when he would relapse-- and i will own that i did it too. that there was this-- very much this, "hmmm, all those tools.

all that time. all that money--" >> stahl: "and you went right back to it"? >> dr. jennifer plumb: "and you went right back, and you relapsed." >> rezac: it's going to go into the thigh, or into the shoulder. >> stahl: dr. plumb's team also goes into private homes in the suburbs to train people, like the keetch family: dad, mom, grandma, and ashlee-- an addict five weeks clean. if she relapses now, ashlee is likelier to o.d. due to lower tolerance. so they want to learn how to use naloxone at home-- all except ashlee. she already knows how to use it. >> ashlee keetch: i've used it twice on people and brought them back. >> stahl: now, were you-- were you high? >> ashlee keetch: uh-huh, yeah, i was. >> stahl: and you still could do it? >> ashlee keetch: yeah. >> stahl: ashlee, when did you start and how did you start? >> ashlee keetch: when i was 19, i started on oxycontin. switched over to heroin because you couldn't get the other anymore. >> stahl: ashlee was a hard-core

drug addict for ten years. after many failed attempts to get clean, her parents told her they couldn't take it any more, and she ended up homeless in the slums of rio grande. this is where ashlee was. >> rezac: yeah. ashlee was down here, for a year. >> stahl: and you used-- you used to see her here. >> rezac: yeah, we used to try to put her in motel rooms for the night, when i could. >> stahl: what shape was she in when you saw her? >> rezac: well, you saw her today. imagine her 50 pounds lighter. >> stahl: 50 pounds lighter? >> rezac: yeah. with sores and-- she was not in good shape. >> stahl: she was barely recognizable. her grandmother often went looking for her, with food and offers of a comfortable place to sleep. >> kitsy keetch: she was skin and bones. and she told me that-- how hard it was to be on heroin, and how awful it was, and to be addicted to it. for the last ten years, especially through her rough

times, we knew it was either going to be mortuary or jail. >> anita keetch: we're always waiting for that call. it's going to be the jail, or the morgue, or the police. >> stahl: i had a mother tell me that when it's the jail, she's relieved. >> anita keetch: i am. >> kitsy keetch: we were so happy. >> anita keetch: i was thrilled she went to jail. at least she's off the street and she's safe. >> stahl: so you went down into the homeless areas and-- >> kitsy keetch: i would take her food. she went and stayed. i mean, she went and stayed with her. >> stahl: you stayed? where, on the street? >> anita keetch: yeah. last summer. >> stahl: your mother went and-- >> ashlee keetch: i know. ( laughs ) >> anita keetch: i asked her, "hey, i want to come understand," and i hadn't seen her that much. i just wanted to be with her, and i just wanted to try and understand the disease more. and so i said, "can i come hang out with you," basically, and gave her the choice, to, you know... does she want me to see her at her worst? so she said, "yeah, you can come hang out." so i went met her and her boyfriend, and within 30 seconds, they were injecting right in front of me. >> stahl: oh, come on.

>> anita keetch: and i watched her shoot up, i don't know, countless times-- at least 20, and smoke crack. >> stahl: she learned how much of a grip the drugs had on her child; she saw how panicked ashlee would get without them. >> ashlee keetch: it's a man drowning, trying to get to a lifeboat. like, that's the desperation that you have for thinking that "i need this, i need to get this, you know, and i'll go to any cost." >> stahl: and your brain is saying, "get it for me. get it for me. get it for me." >> ashlee keetch: yeah. i'll go to any-- this is what you need to live. this is air, you know. >> stahl: now the whole family is working together to help ashlee stay clean, and to learn how to save her with a syringe of naloxone if she should relapse. in most states now, you can pick up naloxone at your pharmacy, often without a personal prescription. a syringe and vial can cost around $15. but the f.d.a. has approved two new, easier-to-use naloxone devices specifically for people

with no medical training: a nasal spray, and an auto- injector, like an epipen, that talks! >> evzio trainer: if you are ready to use, pull off the red safety guard. >> stahl: problem is, they're way more expensive. the spray is $125. the injector? over $4,000. >> evzio trainer: injection complete. >> stahl: more about that, when we come back.

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>> stahl: drug companies jacking up the price of life-saving medications can seem arbitrary, cruel, and even scandalous. the infamous c.e.o. martin shkreli hiked the price of daraprim, a drug used by aids patients to fend off infections, from $13.50 to $750-- for one pill. the company mylan raised the cost of the epipen that reverses anaphylactic shock caused by allergies 500%, from $100 to $600. and now, there's the case of evzio. it's a talking auto-injector with naloxone, the antidote to reverse opioid overdoses.

it's easy to use for people with no medical training. the actual drug naloxone can cost as little as a nickel a dose, according to industry insiders. but evzio costs a lot more. its price tag is over $4,000. what do you think about, in the midst of a crisis, shooting the price up like that? >> dr. jennifer plumb: if you're out there trying to get as far and wide coverage for people, and you watch the price escalate, it feels really predatory. and it feels really uncaring. >> stahl: dr. jennifer plumb, who runs an organization that hands out naloxone in utah, distributes syringes that cost the least-- around $15 each. she says they're just as easy to use as the newer, pricier devices. we decided to try for ourselves. so hand me the syringe for one sec. >> dr. jennifer plumb: okay. >> stahl: all right. here i'm trying to do this, thinking that i've got a body in

front of me and that i'm a nervous wreck. >> dr. jennifer plumb: sure. >> stahl: and there's a lot of panic in me. so i've done that. i pull this off-- twist-- oh, okay. already, i've messed up by having a nervous break-- >> dr. jennifer plumb: no, see. that's okay, though, just pull. >> stahl: so you put this down somewhere. then tip it up? >> dr. jennifer plumb: uh-huh. >> stahl: and move the needle below the air line. >> dr. jennifer plumb: yeah. >> stahl: and-- okay, now i'm having trouble. this is not as easy as you keep saying. >> dr. jennifer plumb: you don't think? >> stahl: no. at least, not for me. next, we tried narcan, the nasal spray. it costs much more than the syringe: $125 for a pack of two. >> dr. jennifer plumb: you peel it, place it in the nose, and push it. >> stahl: all right. all right, so i pushed it way up the guy's nose? or the woman's nose? >> dr. jennifer plumb: uh-huh. >> stahl: and i plunge? >> dr. jennifer plumb: yep. >> stahl: oh. there you go! >> dr. jennifer plumb: there you go. now, take into account that you might have to deal with a whole lot of yuck in a nose to be able to make that easy step. >> stahl: then there's evzio, by far the most expensive option.

it's an auto-injector that talks you through the process: >> evzio trainer: to inject, place black end against outer thigh. >> stahl: i used a trainer, without naloxone in it. >> evzio trainer: five, four, three, two, one. ( beeping ) injection complete. >> dr. jennifer plumb: there you go. >> stahl: wow. >> dr. jennifer plumb: so you get it, easy to use? >> stahl: i get it. >> dr. jennifer plumb: it's there. >> stahl: really easy. i think, because-- something's talking to you, it's calming. >> dr. jennifer plumb: you feel like you have advice. >> stahl: i can see why it's more expensive. not as more expensive, but-- >> dr. jennifer plumb: i don't know. i bought a card that talks to me at walmart for $1.49 yesterday. >> stahl: at $4,000-plus for a pack of two, even with discounts and donations, evzio is completely out of budget for organizations like dr. plumb's, or for first responders who deal with drug addicts on the streets. but evzio's maker has targeted a

different at-risk population. it's the group, dr. plumb says, that has the most overdose deaths in utah: >> dr. jennifer plumb: picture who you think that person is today, that someone's planning a funeral for. i picture a 22-year-old, jobless, shiftless, maybe homeless young man. well, here's the demographics: it's me. it's 45- to 54-year-old women. that's who's most likely to die today in utah. >> stahl: it's a fact that middle-age women and men are a large, vulnerable population all across the country. they often die at home from misusing or abusing high-dose prescription pain pills. also at risk are other household members, with access to the medicine cabinet. >> dr. jennifer plumb: i can tell you multiple stories of breathing, from--h c >> stahl: babies? >> dr. jennifer plumb: --from accidental exposures in their homes. if you hang out with kids, they're oral explorers. i love them dearly, but they're buggers. they get into everything, right?

>> stahl: so doctors, who prescribe opioids, are now encouraged to prescribe naloxone at the same time. it's called co-prescribing, and both the opioid and the antidote are supposed to be covered by insurance. that's the lucrative market evzio's maker, kaleo, was going after. it priced the injector high to begin with, $575, and then bumped it up more than 550%! >> mr. b.: i began my job search the day after they announced the price hike, because it was greedy and a little unethical, in my opinion. >> stahl: we talked to over a dozen former kaleo employees, including these two sales reps, in shadow for fear of being black-balled in the industry. you'd go into a doctor's office and try to convince him to write a prescription for this medication that has just jumped up to $4,000.

how did the doctors react? >> mr. b.: the doctors, most of them, were disgusted. >> stahl: and how did you feel? >> mr. a.: i felt slimy. i no longer felt like i'm helping people. now i feel like i'm taking advantage of people. now, remember, we're talking about naloxone. kaleo didn't invent or didn't discover naloxone. >> stahl: right. >> mr. a.: naloxone's been around for 50 years. >> stahl: it's a generic at this point. >> mr. a.: it costs pennies. just imagine if you took aspirin, been around forever, and you packaged it up in a fancy box and put a bow on there. >> stahl: the price went up after this man was hired by the company. todd smith. who is he? >> mr. b.: he was a consultant for kaleo pharmaceuticals, and he's been a consultant and had other positions with other pharmaceutical companies. and he's kind of notorious for bringing this pricing strategy to those companies. >> stahl: so he had done this at other companies before he got to being hiking the price? >> mr. b.: correct. >> stahl: todd smith wouldn't talk to us on camera, but here's

his resume: while he was chief commercial officer at horizon pharma, this bottle of arthritis pills shot up from around $100 to over $1,000. at a company called novum, he hiked up the price of this skin gel from around $200 to nearly $8,000. kaleo was just another drug company he advised-- only it was making a life-saving device in the middle of a worsening health crisis. you were called greedy, you were called uncaring. it was called profiteering. as you well know. this was the reputation you were getting. >> spencer williamson: so, lesley, that could be nothing farther from the truth. >> stahl: meet kaleo's c.e.o., spencer williamson. you jack the price from the $575-- >> williamson: lesley, i-- >> stahl: --to $4,000! $4,000! >> williamson: lesley, lesley? >> stahl: what? >> williamson: i don't love that word. we raised the price to improve

access to this product. >> stahl: okay, now, that-- explain that. >> williamson: yeah, that-- >> stahl: that's hard to get your head around. >> williamson: the big misperception is that by raising the price of evzio, we reduce the access to this product. the exact opposite is true. >> stahl: more people are getting it at that price? >> williamson: yeah, the numbers don't lie. so, less than 5,000 prescriptions were filled in the first 12 months. in the second 12 months, over 65,000 prescriptions were filled. >> stahl: how can that be? well, when kaleo set the initial price at $575, it was warned that would be too high for middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers, or p.b.m.s, that negotiate drug prices for health plans. use product would be irresistible in an escalating opioid crisis. but when it hit the market, williamson says, the p.b.m.s did try to discourage doctors from

prescribing evzio, piling on cumbersome paperwork. >> williamson: a physician had to show that a patient had failed with another form of naloxone before they could get this product. >> stahl: if they failed, they'd be dead. >> williamson: exactly. >> stahl: i mean, does that make sense? >> williamson: no. >> stahl: were there other hindrances? >> williamson: yes, the second hindrance, the other-- the second tool they use is high patient co-pays. so, they make the patient pay a big number out of pocket. here's a scenario that played out many times: a patient goes into a pharmacy with her opioid prescription, and they go into the pharmacy with their lifesaving product prescription. >> stahl: co-prescribed. >> williamson: co-prescribed. the opioid is prescribed, no problem, a very low co-pay. this gets blocked. the lifesaving product gets blocked. >> stahl: that's because there were less expensive alternatives: the syringe and then the nasal spray. so, why didn't kaleo just lower the price? well, remember todd smith, the consultant?

he advised them not to lower the price, but to raise it-- a lot-- and try to work around the roadblocks put up by pharmacy benefit managers. under smith's scheme, doctors, unhappy with excessive paperwork, are told to send prescriptions to specific pharmacies contracted to handle the forms for them, and these pharmacies mail the devices directly to the patient, making a trip to the drugstore unnecessary. kaleo, meanwhile, tries to get as much money out of the insurance companies as it can. but the heart of smith's model is that while insurance companies are charged a lot, patients with commercial insurance-- well, they're charged nothing. if your plan agrees to cover it, kaleo pays your co-pay. and if your plan refuses, kaleo will give you evzio, 100% free. >> stahl: are you saying that, that if your insurance company

won't pay, or they jack up the co-pay, that you'll pay? so patients don't pay anything? >> williamson: we will step in and make sure a patient pays nothing out-of-pocket. that's correct. >> stahl: how can they afford that? the calculation is that even if only a handful of insurance companies agree to pay the high price, kaleo would still rake in a lot of money, since it costs only about $80 to manufacture a pack of two. this whole idea was described to us as, and i'm quoting, "a legal shell game to bilk insurance companies." >> mr. b.: that's correct, yes. >> stahl: and eventually, then, to bilk the rest of us. don't we end up-- >> mr. a.: ultimately it will. >> mr. b.: it raises the overall health care cost for everybody. you and i, paying our premiums, are the ones paying for it. >> mr. a.: if you think the insurance company's going to be stuck with this bill in the long run-- no. >> stahl: you and i are stuck with the bill in another way:

as taxpayers. turns out, the bulk of kaleo's revenue for evzio comes not from commercial insurance companies, but from medicare. this report, to be released tomorrow by the senate permanent subcommittee on investigations led by senators rob portman and tom carper, details how kaleo made sure that doctors signed forms for medicare patients "indicating that evzio was medically necessary." with that language, medicare has essentially no choice but to cover the device at near full price. that resulted in "more than $142 million in charges to taxpayers in just the last four years." the report says kaleo "not only exploits a country in the middle of an opiod crisis, but also american taxpayers;" accusations kaleo denies. and you make a profit. you make a profit? >> williamson: so, we've actually lost money in our first

four years of bringing this product to the market. the good news is, we're saving lives. more people have access to this product. >> stahl: why are you doing it, if you're not making a profit? >> williamson: we're moving in a direction with a model that continues to evolve. >> stahl: it seems to be "evolving" in the direction of scrapping the high-price plan altogether. whether it's because the model failed to produce a profit, or because they're under senate investigation for, as the report lays out, "exploiting medicare," williamson took the opportunity of our interview to make this offer. >> williamson: we want to reach out to all middle men, all insurance companies, to say, "we will lower this price to less than the original $575 if you will make sure that when a physician decides a patient is at risk, they can get it, and they can afford it." >> stahl: but all the insurance companies have to agree, for you to get there. >> williamson: we will work with

one insurance company at a time. >> stahl: have you done it yet? >> williamson: we have started those conversations. but i'm announcing it on "60 minutes," that our hands are out to offer this price for less than $575 as long as patients won't be blocked when they need it. >> cbs sports h.q.is presented by progressive insurance. i'm james brown with the scores from the n.f.l. today. pittsburgh scores 20 unanswered to win its sixth straight. baltimore rookie quarterback lamar jackson wins his first career start. denver stuns the chargers to snap their six-game winning streak. houston is first team since 1975 to win seven straight after starting 0-3. for 24/7news and highlight, visit cbs sports hq.com. -ice dispenser, find me a dog sitter.

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>> kroft: in football circles, tim green has always been known as a renaissance man. he was an all-american defensive lineman at syracuse university and an english major who

graduated magna cum laude. he spent eight years sacking quarterbacks for the atlanta falcons, and picked up a law degree in his spare time. and, during a decade in the broadcast booth for fox sports, he started writing books. six became best sellers. then, two months ago, the man who seemed to be able to do anything, sent us news he could no longer hide. he is suffering from a.l.s., lou gehrig's disease-- one of a growing number of n.f.l. players to receive that diagnosis. his body is starting to fail, and his voice has lost its timbre. but, his story now is even more compelling than it was when we first met him, back in 1996, upon the publication of his football memoir, "the dark side of the game." >> tim green: you cannot go through an n.f.l. season without doing serious damage to your body. >> kroft: 22 years later, tim green spent this fall as he has

most falls, on the football field, coaching the young skaneateles lakers. he wasn't able to march up and down the sidelines or yell out instructions the way he used to... >> tim green: ( hoarse yelling ) >> out there, encouraging his players, most of whom had little idea what their coach is facing. when did you first realize that there was something wrong? >> tim green: it was a small thing. i couldn't use my nail clipper. >> kroft: nail clipper? >> tim green: yeah. i couldn't do that. and then it got hard to open things. >> kroft: tim green didn't make much of it then. just a few more battle scars from his days in the n.f.l. the first time we met him, he told us he had a lot of them. >> tim green: i have enough aches and pains to know that i played the game. >> kroft: he was three years removed from a playing career in

which he roamed the field like a predator, first in college at syracuse... >> tim green! >> kroft: ...and then as number 99 with the n.f.l.'s atlanta falcons. he was a vicious tackler and a voracious reader, a man who devoured "war and peace" in the locker room before going into battle. in retirement, he kept his body fit and his mind sharp by writing novels for young and old at the upstate new york home that he shared with his wife and children. but by the summer of 2016, at age 52, he finally admitted to his son troy that he felt something was off. >> troy green: he was saying to me, you know, "my hands, you know, it's getting hard for me to hold the weights." and i'd make a joke, "oh, you're getting old." >> kroft: tim decided to see a prominent hand surgeon. >> tim green: and he looked. he said, "i think you have a.l.s." i said, "no, i don't."

>> kroft: that same day, he went straight to mount sinai hospital in new york city to meet with a neurologist. >> tim green: and, you know-- >> kroft: what'd he tell you? >> tim green: "get your affairs in order." >> troy green: he basically said that the end is near, you better get your affairs in order. >> kroft: not what you wanted to hear? >> tim green: no. >> kroft: a.l.s., the three stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a rare disease that new york yankee legend lou gehrig gave a name and a face to 80 years ago, and that recently claimed the life of physicist dr. stephen hawking.

it destroys the nerves that move muscles, eventually making it impossible to walk, speak or breathe. tim understood that he had been given a death sentence. he also had no interest in doctors, treatments or sympathy. >> tim green: i said, "we're not talking about it." >> troy green: it was almost taboo. even, even around the house, no one, we wouldn't talk about it, we wouldn't address it. it was just kind of like the elephant in the room. >> kroft: were you in denial? >> tim green: no, i knew i had it. >> kroft: you didn't want to waste any time thinking about it? you just wanted to live? >> tim green: exactly. >> kroft: most a.l.s. patients are given two to five years to live, and tim green wanted to enjoy whatever time he had left with his five kids and wife of 29 years in the beautiful town of skaneateles, which sits at the top of one of new york's finger lakes. >> tim green: life can never be

long enough. >> kroft: life can never be long enough. >> tim green: yeah. >> kroft: few outside tim's family knew of the diagnosis. he continued making public appearances, like this one in march 2017 on "cbs this morning" alongside derek jeter. they were promoting their collaboration on a baseball book for middle school kids. >> there's so much rich messages in the story. >> kroft: difficult to tell that there was anything wrong with you. >> tim green: i could still enunciate my words more clearly. but that was a year and a half ago. >> kroft: tim's condition began deteriorating in the months after that appearance. his family finally convinced him to see a neurologist in boston. he was examined by dr. merit

cudkowicz, the director of the healey center for a.l.s. at massachusetts general hospital. what's tim's prognosis? >> dr. merit cudkowicz: he has one of the better prognoses because he has a slower form. however, everybody with a.l.s. has a serious prognosis. it is, today, a fatal disease. >> kroft: and there's no cure? >> dr. cudkowicz: there's no cure today. but there are some treatments, and there's a lot of advances in science and a lot of hope for our patients. >> kroft: dr. cudkowicz put green on a new treatment that can slow the progression of a.l.s. by a third. he says he's noticed the difference. >> dr. cudkowicz: your mood is okay? >> tim green: yeah. oh, yeah. >> kroft: no one knows exactly what causes a.l.s. in tim green's case, head trauma is a leading suspect. scientists caution that the data linking football to the disease is not conclusive, but the n.f.l. concussion settlement specifically covers a.l.s., and tim green believes there's a connection.

how much of this do you think has to do with football? >> tim green: i think probably a lot, if not all. >> kroft: he says he lost track of the number of concussions he suffered playing football. he stopped counting after ten. >> tim green: i used my head on every play. every play. every snap. it was like throwing myself head-first into a concrete wall. >> kroft: did you ever think about it while you were playing? >> tim green: no. no. >> kroft: he even used his head to celebrate on the field. at the time, he says, no one was concerned about possible brain damage. during his n.f.l. career in the late '80s and early '90s, pre-season practices were particularly brutal. tim's wife illyssa remembers the pounding he took.

>> ilyssa green: his head was so swollen, he would put, have to put vaseline all over his head to get his helmet on. >> tim green: practice was much worse than the games. >> kroft: and you didn't go easy in practice? >> tim green: no! i was nuts. ( laughs ) >> kroft: you seem like such a mild-mannered guy. >> tim green: i am. i am. >> kroft: but not on a football field? >> tim green: no, no. >> kroft: when we interviewed tim green in 1996, he addressed the violence and risks inherent in the game, and seemed to believe that this day might come. you said, "i think guys would be willing to take ten to 20 years off the end of their lives, in order to get out there on a sunday and play. i don't think that the consideration of your physical wellbeing in the future is in the forefront of any n.f.l. player's mind. >> tim green: right. i stand by that.

i've maybe taken that much off the end of my life. maybe more. i don't know. >> kroft: you don't have any regrets? >> tim green: no. no. >> kroft: to fully understand, he says, you have to know what it was like being out there, doing something you dreamed of, and experiencing, even for a moment, the intensity of 60,000 people screaming for you and your teammates, and feeling that energy through every pore in your body. >> tim green: it was as magical and wonderful as i dreamed it would be. >> kroft: tim green believes if his football career had started 30 years later, he might not be fighting for his life today. new n.f.l. rules have drastically cut back helmet-to- helmet contact in practice, and it's penalized in games.

he follows those guidelines with the youth team he coaches, limiting contact during team staquarterback. tim doesn't want him to play defense. the trophies from his n.f.l. career fill his office, but instead of mounted heads of lions, tigers and bears, there are pictures of the big game quarterbacks he's brought down: >> tim green: joe montana. >> kroft: yeah, number 16. 49ers. >> tim green: he was the king back then. >> kroft: and that is dan marino? >> tim green: yeah. yeah. >> kroft: i like that. best time of your life? >> tim green: no. best time of my life is right now. >> kroft: right now? >> tim green: yeah. >> kroft: why? >> tim green: i have everyg.

>> kroft: tim green was adopted, so "everything" to him means family. the greens all live in the same neighborhood, and they eat dinner together five nights a week. he works out with his sons almost every day at his home gym to keep his muscles functioning. the kids say their dad's not going to quit... >> troy green: he'll never give up. >> tessa green: i don't think i've ever seen that in his... >> tate green: never. >> tessa green: ...things that he does. he's never... >> troy green: he doesn't give up in tic-tac-toe, he's not-- >> tim green: i don't think about, about what i can't do. >> kroft: and you can still write? >> tim green: yeah. and i can write. and, you know, that opens up a universe. >> kroft: writing offers him an escape from his illness. he's authored 38 books overall, four since his diagnosis. he wrote the last one on his smartphone using his thumbs--

all 300 pages. so this is a new book? >> tim green: yeah. yeah. >> kroft: his thumbs no longer work that well, but his mind is just fine. he's using technology to forge ahead with book number 39. >> tim green: there's a sensor. >> kroft: there's a sensor in his glasses that he can move to lock on letters on his keyboard. he then clicks on a mouse, and words are formed, letter by letter. how far along are you on this, this book? >> tim green: i'm about halfway. >> kroft: he's a little behind schedule-- the first deadline he's ever missed. >> tim green: i apologized to my editor. >> kroft: i think your editor understands. >> tim green: she did, yeah. >> kroft: more scientists than ever are trying to unlock causes, but it's still an under-funded disease. >> troy green: this is what the website will look like. >> kroft: that's why tim and his family are starting a social

media campaign, called tackle a.l.s., to raise money for research. current and former n.f.l. stars matt ryan... >> matt ryan: let's beat this. >> kroft: ...von miller... >> von miller: let's beat this. >> kroft: ...and brett favre... >> brett favre: let's beat this. >> kroft: ...have all joined the team. but tim understands that he may not be around to see the benefits. in the time he has left, however long that may be, he is content to enjoy the power of his boat, and the company of his family. he just feels blessed for who he was, and what he has. >> tim green: people would say "tim, god bless you." and i'd say, "he already has." >> tim green on his emotional interview. >> tim green: these are tears of joy. >> go to 60minutesovertime.com. you've tried moisturizer after moisturizer

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guess who is bulking up your meaty breakfast burritos? this guy. get my meat lovers with bacon, sausage, and ham. or grande sausage with creamy sriracha sauce. because at jack in the box, whoops, we're all about bulking up breakfast. alright, buh-bye. and we're pretty pumped about it. meaty, baby! up top, jack! ...mondays, right? [laughter] bulk up your breakfast with my meaty breakfast burritos. part of the breakfast burrito family. >> stahl: in the mail this week: comments on last sunday's three stories. steve kroft looked at a european law protecting privacy rights from internet companies.

"do people really think that facebook and google are just letting us use their services for free because they're nice? of course they are collecting our data. if you don't like it, don't use it." bill whitaker's visit to the tunnels at the bottom of a south african gold mine proved nearly too vivid for a florida viewer: "so well done that i almost had to turn it off, because i'm claustrophobic." and then, there was sharyn alfonsi's portrait of football's griffin twins and their pact to remain together as teammates. "thanks, we needed that." i'm lesley stahl. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." and happy thanksgiving. how's your cough? i'm good. i took 12-hour mucinex and sent it far away. hey buddy, have you seen a nice woman with a cough? woahhh! mucinex dm releases fast and lasts 12-hours, not 4. send coughs far away all day.

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